Geo-Blocking Measures and the Online Publication of Anne Frank’s Diaries

Geo-Blocking Measures and the Online Publication of Anne Frank’s Diaries

Journal article

1 electronic resource (page 705–712)

Geo-blocking is widely applied in various copyright sectors to prevent communication to the public in specific geographical territories when a work is published online. Geo-blocking measures, however, can easily be bypassed using a Virtual Private Network or proxy service. This raises the question of whether the possibility of circumvention causes a communication to the public in the geo-blocked territory, which features prominently in a case currently pending before the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) on the online publication of the diaries of Anne Frank (Case C-788/24). Analysing the key elements of the referral, this article concludes that, regardless of the possibility of bypassing geo-blocking measures, entities publishing works on a geo-blocked website do not communicate those works to the public in the countries for which the geo-blocking measures are effective. Otherwise, this would mark the end of territorial licensing of copyright for online uses in Europe, while rendering unlawful the online publication of a work in countries where it is public domain, due to the potential infringement of copyright in the work in other jurisdictions. That would be disproportionate.

Crossref

GRUR International ; 74, 8, 2025, 2632-8550.

[Oxford, England] : Oxford University Press (OUP), 2025.

English

https://academic.oup.com/grurint/article/72/3/231/6998505

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